Ruth Wieder Magan

 "[Her voice is] rich-textured...[her performances] from any cultural perspective, are intensely moving, a stunning combination of artistry and spirituality." Don Heckman , Los Angeles Times review
 George Robinson writes in THE JEWISH WEEK Ruth's music is “haunting, moving, sometimes scary-the closest to a mystical experience I have had listening to music since the first time I heard Coltraine's 'A Love Supreme', Faure's 'Requiem', or the choral movement of Beethoven's 'Ninth'. Astonishing.”
 "It's like nothing else I've ever heard before - kind of Meredith Monk Goes to Synagogue and meets Diamanda Galas! I love this album, and will play it often on my show. " Ellen Kushner, PRI's "Sound & Spirit"Boston.
"To an outsider to the faith, like me, Jewish tradition is irrelevant in the face of the intensity of Ruth’s singing. At the level of performance, it is awesome – her dynamics encompass the cloistered whisper as well as the anguished cry of loss that seems propelled by the entire mass of her being. Love and mourning – it is trivial to say that these are the universal themes of art; in her music, these human emotions take on the spiritual aspirations so familiar to us from quawwali, where the loved one merges with the universal being. Jewish Mysticism holds that God created the world from nothing;man’s work is to return the world to its original source.And in this work is the motive spark of prayer-a return to the primordial nothingness.To understand this is to place Ruth’s work incontext,to grasp that in her swirlingsound is a desire to sculpt the shape of nothingness.But to dwell too much on tradition is to deny Ruth her iconoclasm.”
Mohit Satyanand, Chennai Express- Indian Weekly
Theatre Company Jerusalem (TCJ) explores Sacred Hebrew text and music to produce distinctly contemporary theatre and music performances articulating important issues in a universal voice that communicates beyond cultural and ethnic boundaries.
Biography
Ruth Wieder-Magan is best known for her pioneering work integrating sacred Hebrew texts into contemporary music and theater. Her unique approach to the transcendental aspects of voice, text and spatial perception is deeply rooted in Jewish oral tradition: Talmud, Kabbalah, and, in particular, the esoteric and influential 9th century text -"Book of Creation.”
Her innovative work has enriched voice study introducing it as evolving vibrational sculptures, or a kind of scanner of dimensions. Another important aspect of Ruth's vocal performances, or Theatre of Voices, is the recreation of the female voice in Jewish text and song. In a Tradition where the male voice is omnipotent, Ruth is making audible and available to women the already deeply internalized female processes recorded by men.
Ruth's collaborative research of sacred Hebrew texts has served as a foundation for over ten original contemporary works of music and theatre produced with Theatre Company Jerusalem, of which she is a founding member and co-director.
The original works of Theater Company Jerusalem include "Ma’aseh Bruria," "Elef Ester Vehester," "Even The Birds," "Echoes of Prayer," "Sara, Take One" and "Songs Inner and Revealed". For these performances, Theatre Company Jerusalem has received national and international prizes. Ruth began her studies of voice and speech as a young child with the renowned Australian teacher, Marie Boyers. She graduated from the Trinity College of Music in Sydney at the age of 18. A few months thereafter she emigrated to Israel and entered into rigorous studies of ancient Jewish texts, including Jewish mysticism and Hassidism. Amongst her teachers during this period were-the poet and inspired gypsy singer Allen Afterman whose songs always trod the fine line between flight and the terrible abyss, - and the enigmatic and saintly leader of Braslev Hasidism, Rav Gedalia Koenig. Through Rav Koenig and others she gained extensive exposure to the ritual singing of closed Hassidic sects and these opened up for her the area of mystical communion through song.
Ruth continued in experimental voice training with the Roy Hart Theatre in France, and in particular with Barry Coghlan. There she was introduced to the extended range of the voice and was able to further explore the connections between voice and psyche. In 1989, she began in-depth studies of cantorial singing with the noted teachers Dov Kaplan and Chaim Feifel. As important as all these teachers have been to Ruth's vocal genius, a motivating sources for her art has been her parents, both of whom were Holocaust survivors. Through them, she first heard melodies, intonations and spiritual inklings rooted in a lost world.
Ruth has performed widely in Israel and abroad in festivals from Scotland to Poland to Hungary to the USA. London, Thailand Japan and more. She sang in the World Festival of Sacred Music in Bangalore, India, under the aegis of the Dalai Lama and once more before the Dalai Lamma in the Sacred Chant Festival in Delhi. While continuing to perform regularly, Ruth is also a beloved teacher of voice at various institutes of higher education in Jerusalem, including The School for Visual Art and Theater. The renown of her dedication, the intensely focused and meditative quality of her classes, and her unique techniques of vocal work and text have made her a much sought after mentor. Ruth's CD, "Ayin Zoher-Songs to the Invisible God" first released by the Sounds True label in the United States has received critical acclaim. representing her original blend of ancient prayers and folksongs with poetry and theatre-delicately and intensely woven into burning, bruising, beautiful sounds.
Currently, Ruth lives in a small agricultural community, just outside of Jerusalem, with her husband and three children.
Written by:Professor Nuala Archer of Cleveland State University